First, the bad news. Even though there were slightly fewer renters in 2017 — for the first time in more than a decade — the cost of rent still rose more than 2%, according to an annual analysis of the rental market conducted by Abodo.

To give you a better picture of where you might consider starting your new year, we looked at the change in income and population of those 85 cities, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, along with the local unemployment rates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We then weighed the affordability and strength of each local economy, along with the latest rental rates for one-bedroom apartments from Abodo to bring you the cities that are growing, getting richer and are actually affordable in 2018.

These 8 Affordable Cities Are Growing and Getting Richer

You want to live where the jobs are, right? All of these cities have unemployment rates below the national average of 4.1%. We’ve also tried to come as close as possible to the 30% rule when it comes to the amount you spend on rent.

And finally, we looked at the industries in each city to find which ones employ the most residents, then created our list of eight affordable cities that are on major upswings.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.